Snow or no, funerals go on

Friday

Feb 8, 2013 at 6:00 AMFeb 8, 2013 at 4:19 PM

By Kim Ring TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

If you think Mother Nature might provide the perfect excuse to skip a funeral this weekend, think again.

“We cancel very seldom,” said funeral director William J. Fay II of Callahan and Fay Brothers Funeral Home in Worcester. “The grieving process is hard enough, but to be complicated by Mother Nature, it's too bad.”

Mr. Fay plans to go ahead with a funeral planned for today but the burial, which will take place in Watertown, has been postponed.

At Worcester County Memorial Park in Paxton graves are dug year-round regardless of the weather.

Cancellations have been rare in the more than 50 years the cemetery has been open, said Daniel Czaja, the operations manager.

The ice storm a few years ago stopped a few burials because people couldn't get to the facility. One burial, slated for 11 a.m. today, is expected to go as planned and there are none scheduled for Saturday, which, Mr. Czaja said, is good because workers can plow and clear the roadways in the cemetery.

He remembered an hourlong funeral held during a snowstorm in which he could hardly see the mourners from his office, just a short distance away.

Funeral directors are ready to go in most any weather and if they cancel or reschedule, it's at the request of the family, Funeral Director Peter Stefan at Graham, Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, said.

“Churches and cemeteries get everything cleared out,” he said. “But people can't get out of their driveways. We call it off for the sake of the people.”

With his years of experience, he said, he has seen reschedulings, though he's never called off a funeral because he couldn't deal with the weather.

“New England probably has the worst weather short of Northern Siberia, but undertakers, for the most part, are ready for it,” he said, though he admits funerals aren't as well attended as they once were.

Still some families are choosing to put off services for loved ones after hearing predictions of more than 2 feet of snow in the Worcester area. A few have been posted on the obituary pages, including a funeral for Worcester businessman John M. Nelson that was scheduled for Saturday. His memorial service will now be at 2 p.m. Feb. 10.

Mr. Stefan said he thinks New Englanders are less hardy these days and remembers shoveling church steps so he could bring a casket inside or following behind the snowplow with his hearse.

And he has some advice for those who are thinking of skipping out on a funeral using the weather as an excuse.

“In the ice and snow they won't come to a funeral but they won't cancel a trip to Foxwoods,” he said. “It's a one-shot deal, make an effort to go.”